Instagram's Benefits for Content Marketing

"Social media marketing evolves as companies embrace new networks that prove to generate conversions and business for brands. In 2012,Pinterest marketing went through its coming of age, outpacing many other networks in terms of growth, referral traffic and adoption. Pinterest continues to expand and add new features to its ever-adapting interface, but the service is no longer the social-media newcomer - that prize goes to Instagram," according to Brafton. "Of course, the picture-sharing network has been around for a few years now, but businesses have just caught on to Instagram'scontent marketing benefits. With more than 90 million monthly active users uploading approximately 40 million photos per day, Instagram has already been adopted by 59 percent of the world's top brands." Read more.

Stumbling into Social Network Conversations

During  yesterday's class, I mentioned that marketers do not know how and why to enter "conversations" on social networks, noting that they do not want to irritate individuals. It happens. "Is it just me, or does it seem like every commercial ends with some half-assed attempt to drive social media traffic? What's the rationale behind adding a Facebook and Twitter logo to the bottom of a commercial with no page name and no call to action? Does the team putting the spot together think viewers will be pleasantly shocked to discover the brand has social channels? And that viewers love their brand so much that they'll drop everything to search for the right page out of their own curiosity? Or how about the ever-present hashtag? Am I supposed to be so excited about watching a commercial that I log on to Twitter to tell all my friends about it, using the guidelines the brand just introduced to me?" Those questions come from a marketing executive posting on AdAge.

Marketers Increasing Ad Budgets for Social Media

Reversing a trend that I noted in yesterday's class, marketers are increasing their advertising on social media sites, according to a report from eMarketer.
"Advertisers’ appetites for paid advertising on social media sites shows no sign of abating in 2013. According to a study conducted for digital brand measurement provider Vizu by Digiday, 64% of US advertisers planned to increase their paid social media ad budgets this year, with just 2% saying they intended to spend less money in 2013 than they did in 2012 on paid social ads." Read more.

eMarketer also reports that "marketers worldwide are continuing to invest in making sense of the surge of data produced by digital interactions with customers—68% said they will increase data-related marketing spending in 2013 and just 3% planned to decrease spending, according to a study by Infogroup Targeting Solutions and Yesmail Interactive." Read more.

Get Google Glasses (AR) Under Your Christmas Tree?

Reports are appearing that Google will be selling its augmented-reality (AR) eyewear (headset) by the end of the year. How much? $1500, the price of an expensive laptop. 

"Does Google's latest promotional video for Glass have you longing for a pair of the augmented reality glasses? Well, we finally have official word from Google that it is aiming to release a 'fully-polished' version of the wearable headset to consumers by the end of this year. The company has also informed us that Google Glass will cost 'less than $1,500' when it goes on sale," according to a post on The Verge. "Last June, the first pre-orders for the 'Explorer' edition of the headset were made available to developers at Google I/O for $1,500, and they were set for delivery some time in the early part of this year. Earlier this week, Google opened up pre-orders for the Explorer headset to 'creative individuals' for the same price, but that program is selective and requires a brief application. Today is the first time that Google has provided specific information on Glass' release to the public, but there have been hints that it'd be available in 2013. Last May, Sergey Brin said 'I have some hopes to maybe get it out sometime next year.'" Read more in The Verge.

MTV UK reports that "Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has confessed that he "can't wait" to own a pair." Read more on MTV UK.

In order for an AR eyewear to perform as Google Glasses has demonstrated in the past year, it must hook up to a GPS (global positioning satellite). So Google is gathering information about the location of an individual wearing the AR device as well as what he/she is looking at. What do you as students in English 202 think the impact that this device with have on Internet marketing--aside from giving people one more opportunity to avoid a conversation and tweat instead?

"Publishers" Struggle in the Digital Age

Some students in English 202 do not understand how advertising works in the digital age. Publishers--companies that maintain websites, such as NYTimes.com, Disney.com, WSJ.com, and ESPN.com, tell ad exchanges what space and time advertisers can buy on their webpages. Advertisers then buy depending on the demographics of the site. These companies conduct all these transactions on an automated basis. (Ad exchanges act as auctions of advertising space and time slots for websites.) However, not all publishers sell "all" their space on an automated basis. Advertisers and publishers agree that some space and time slots offer the best possible results, such as the opening page of each edition of the NYTimes.com. Publishers sell these spots to advertisers individually, and they offer only their most basic or generic "space" on ad exchanges, hence the reason for the following AdAge post:

Big publishers don't want to release premium inventory to automated purchase because they fear commoditization. The persistent fear is that selling through automated channels creates an opportunity for buyers to get the same inventory at reduced rates. And indeed, finding the same inventory via automated routes could make direct buys unnecessary. So publishers release generic inventory only, which undermines the potential of automation.
Premium display units are excellent tools for delivering branding messages, and automated technology enables advertisers to value impressions on their own terms. That sounds like a match made in heaven. If a highly sought-after audience target lands on a page that has premium ad slots available, several advertisers are likely to bid, which will drive up the price. Auction models reward the highest bidder, not the most conservative one – that's how Google has made so much money on premium search keywords for years. Read more.

Digital or Traditional Marketing?

"For media executives, there may be nothing worse than a viewer or listener who is not counted," starts the New York Times. "On Thursday, in a move that might help ease those concerns, Nielsen said that it would start considering Americans who have spurned cable, but who have a television set hooked up to the Internet, as “television households,” potentially adding to the sample of homes that are rated by the company, the standard for television ratings. In front of skeptical network officials, the company pledged to measure TV viewership on iPads and other mobile devices in the future." Read more.

"Trending" Affects News Presentation

"Digital subscriptions and online advertising haven’t turned into the gold mine newspapers were hoping for when they made the transition from print to screen. But when you look at the history of the newspaper industry in this country, digital is relatively new, so they’re still working out the kinks," according to Marketing Pilgrim. "What they need are some fresh ideas and the New York Times has that covered.  Michael Zimbalist, head of the NYT’s research and development department, talked to Beet.TV about a new concept in ad targeting. It’s called 'Sparking Stories' and it ties ads together with articles that are trending on Twitter." Read more.

Toyota Tags along a Weather Channel App

"The Weather Company (TWC), formerly The Weather Channel Companies, released a redesigned version of The Weather Channel app for Android on Monday. Toyota, the app's exclusive launch partner, is featuring a new ad unit with branded background within the app," says ClickZ. "'The app offers a bigger palette for creatives to use to tell their stories but still be contextual and not completely interruptive,' says Cameron Clayton, president of TWC Digital Group.
The ad unit combines the correct creative assets from an advertiser with real-time information about weather conditions and time of day at an individual's location. For example, if it's a rainy day, Toyota will show a rainy scene and a car that fits with those conditions. The Toyota ad partnership also includes co-branded media on The Weather Channel network and weather.com." Read more.

Video Content Demand on the Rise

"Demand for video content is at an all-time high, with Brafton reporting that total video views in the United States increased by 23 percent year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2012. The uptick mirrored 47 percent growth in visual ad volume over the same time frame, which shows that companies see consumers' hunger for video content as a marketing opportunity," notes Brafton. "Video marketing can be approached in a variety of ways, as indicated by the Harlem Shake trend and a recent FreeWheel survey. More than 60 advertising agencies rode the wave of the viral dancing clip, producing and uploading their own versions. While the trend may not be commercially relevant to every brand, it demonstrates the shift toward entertaining video marketing." Read more.

Which Is Worse--Google or Facebook?

"Google can be bad enough, with a paucity of humans available to answer questions and fix unjust algorithmically set penalties and the like. Earning itself the nickname the Robot Empire, Google's customer service has been limited to the bigger players, with small and medium businesses left to fend for themselves." So starts the post on Marketing Vox. "The search giant even makes many of its rules deliberately obscure, in the hopes that this opacity will help prevent people from gaming its algorithms. That ad is declined? "Read the guidelines," comes the response. From an autoresponder. This has not gained Google accolades for service among mid-sized advertisers, or even many larger ones. So Facebook had its work cut out for it in vying for the title of worst advertising service provider; but in the course of a very short period of time, it has managed to do just that." Read more.

30% of Ads Not Seen

"Three out of 10 display ads were never rendered in-view in 2012, according to a comScore report," notes ClickZ. "The report found that around six trillion ad impressions were seen last year. ComScore's report also covered 2012 trends in a variety of other markets like mobile and social networking. The 2013 U.S Digital Future in Focus report comes as part of an annual study by the research firm. 'ComScore research showed that an average of 3 in 10 ads are never rendered in-view, leading to significant waste, weaker campaign performance and a glut of poor-performing inventory that imbalances the supply-and-demand equation and depresses CPMs,' said comScore in the report....The firm projects that marketers will begin to use more targeted ads and use data that better shows the monetization ability of advertisements." Read more. 

Analyzing the Users of Social Media

"A quick glance at Pinterest will tell you that the site’s primary users are women who are in to fashion, food, and all forms of creativity. If you want to know who is using Facebook and Twitter, it’s going to take more than a quick look. It’s going to take a survey from the fine folks at the Pew Internet Life and American Life Project," according to Marketing Pilgrim. "Facebook: You won’t be surprised to learn that Facebook has the highest percentage of users with 67%. Women have the edge over men (72% vs 62%) and again it’s popular with 18-29′s. Here’s a surprise, looking an internet users aged 50-64 – 57% are on Facebook and 35% of those over 65 are also using the social media site. Actually, all of the demographic categories are pretty close. Urban slightly outshines suburban and rural, over $75,000 household income is slightly larger than all other numbers and “some college” beats everything else. Overall, Facebook has the most well-rounded group of users. Whatever demographic you’re after, you can find it here.

"Twitter: Twitter’s overall usage percentage has doubled since 2010 but it still sits at an average 16% of all internet users. The male / female ratio is pretty even but percentage-wise, there are more black urban users. 18-29 is the sweet spot age-wise, but 30-49 is pretty good too. Only 10% of those over 50-64 are using Twitter." Read more about Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr.

Do Social Media and Ad Exchanges Deliver Quality Results?

“Social media and ad exchanges deliver clicks and conversions at the lowest cost of all channels, but networks and exchanges don't deliver high-quality, long-term customers, according to a new report from Aggregate Knowledge,” notes ClickZ. “When a marketer's goal is to reach new consumers and be able to message them consistently, social media and portals delivery the best combination of quality and value, the report says. Aggregate Knowledge's Global Media Intelligence Report, released today analyzed aggregated data for approximately 150 billion ad events managed by the company's Media Intelligence Platform. It looked at the largest digital marketing channels: exchanges, networks, portals, and social media, focusing on four key metrics: cost, reach efficiency, user quality, and funnel attribution. The data included 35 billion impressions and 780,000 conversions in Q4 2012.” Read more.

Importance of Facebook "Likes" to Marketers

“'How many​ 'likes' do you have?' Until very recently, skeptics argued that social marketers were obsessed with building social media followings while unable to articulate the value of a fan,” says an AdAge post. “Well, that changes with Facebook Graph Search, [a beta program (means still in testing)] which will make the ROI of a Facebook following as easy to measure as SEO efforts on Google. Welcome to the new era of SEO: instead of links and keywords, it's 'likes' and 'check-ins' that will get your business to the top of the search results. ...Graph Search has the audacious goal of providing relevant search results to a user based on their friends' preferences.” Read more.

Task Force to Develop Privacy Standards for Marketers

“Delta found it out last month when California filed a lawsuit against the airline for violating its 2004 Online Privacy Protection Act for failing to post a conspicuous privacy disclaimer on its 'Fly Delta' app. Foreign countries enforce a hodgepodge of digital privacy regulations, and nothing's to stop other states from enacting their own versions of the California laws. With mobile devices turning digital marketing into a world without borders, what are marketers to do? ” So goes the post on Direct Marketing News. “They could form a global task force, but ISACA, an association of IT professionals, did it for them today on the occasion of Data Privacy Day. The task force is charged with establishing standards, conducting research, and educating companies how to maneuver through the minefield of privacy, an area that has become ever more hazardous with the wholesale adoption of mobile devices.” Read more.

Honda Supplements TV Ad Campaign with Social Media

“Honda has launched a social media program, the #HondaInnovator Series, to support a TV ad for its 2013 Civic that focuses on inventors and innovation in various fields,” notes ClickZ. “The series incorporates Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter and YouTube to push conversations about innovation and the car itself, as well as the idea that progress never stops. In a series of six one-hour tweet chats, users will be able to submit questions to inventors featured in the Civic TV spot, like baby product company 4moms co-founder Henry Thorne, Waterfall Swing inventors Ian Charnas and Drew Ratcliff and 2013 Civic Senior Product Planner Jay Guzowski. As of Monday, a video of the TV spot on YouTube has about 454,000 views. Users can also see #HondaInnovator feeds from Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, Honda says.” Read more.

Microsoft Moves to Video Programming Via the Xbox. Watch Out HBO.

"Microsoft will start rolling out its own video programming to the Xbox device, Ms. Tellem said on stage on Monday at AllThingsD's Dive into Media conference. As such, she is overseeing a new Microsoft production studio in Santa Monica that already is staffed with more than 150 employees, she said," reports AdAge. "What kind of video content will we see? At least initially, it will be programming that appeals to Xbox's core user base of 18- to 34-year-old men. This could be everything from episodic series that aspire to reach HBO and Showtime quality to reality TV shows to live events. It wasn't clear whether Ms. Tellem was being purposefully vague in describing Microsoft's focus or whether the company will really invest in all different types of video programming to test out what types resonate the most. What is clear is that the new division will be focused on making programming that takes advantage of the best of Xbox and Kinect technology." Read more.

The Impact of Video Content Marketing Is Growing

“Companies have begun to develop interactive content marketing strategies, focusing on visual media as a way to attract new prospects and create long-term relationships. Brafton has reported that 70 percent of B2B and B2C brands use video content to engage their audiences, but video marketing has yet to hit full stride. To understand the type of video content that compels prospects to react, marketers must use trial and error, evaluate viewer trends and refine strategies accordingly. A new social app may help brands get added reach and real-time responses,” according to Brafton. “The introduction and proliferation of Twitter's Vine application could create a new video marketing teaser tool and help marketers understand what drives response. Vine allows users to create six-second video clips and publish their creations to Twitter.” Read more.

For your information: B2B refers to companies/brands that market their products and services to businesses as opposed to consumers. B2C refers to those marketing to consumers. Content marketing: It is a relatively new idea in marketing. Create content that customers want to see – from games to how-to information.

More on the same topic: "If Twitter-launched video app Vine is any indication, mobile video content seems to be moving in the direction of short and social. On January 24, Twitter announced Vine, an iPhone app that enables users to record videos of up to 6 seconds and then easily share them with their Twitter followers. The app reached No. 1 among free apps in the Apple social app store the day after its release," according to eMarketer. Read more.

Which Social Network Will Be the Top Marketing Medium

“Social media network growth has burst out of the gate over the past 12 months, and brands that understand the nuances of each platform have greater opportunities for lead generation,” reports Brafton. “According to The Content Marketing Institute, 87 percent of B2B [business to business] brands and 84 percent of B2C [business to consumer] businesses use social media to engage audiences and distribute digital content to prospective and current customers. Marketers who want to win social marketing results have to assess which networks best appeal to their specific audiences, but clear insights on how the platforms stack up can help. The race is on to see which network claims social media marketing's coveted Triple Crown of reach, adoption and performance in 2013.” Read more.

Extension and Tips about the Homework Assignment

New Deadline for Letter Assignment

Since some of you spent Saturday, Sunday, and possibly Monday digging snow for hours on end, I am extending the deadline for the assignment. You can submit it on Wednesday at 11:59 pm.

Homeword Tip

Again a few students have asked what they need to write about. 

The first step that you must embrace before you can effectively: Writing is not primarily a physical act. Writing is thinking. Writing is the act of transferring what you think to a written format. 

The topic for the letter assignment is Internet marketing. Therefore, you need to read the two essays about advertising and Internet marketing, whose links I have posted on the syllabus: "Marketing and Advertising" and "Internet Marketing."

You should also read the blog entries.

Read the material a second time and take notes. 

(Too many students do not take nearly enough notes of material presented in lectures or about material they read. Remember take notes on what the author says, the facts he/she uses, and the ideas and questions that this information generates in your mind. If the essay does not generate any of your own ideas, then you are not engaging with the material. My guess: You are reading just to get through the assignment. Also do not presume that you will remember the information or even where you will find it again. That form of arrogance defies logic as well as the findings of cognitive scientists regarding learning.)

After you finish taking notes on your second read of all the material and without looking at the material or your notes, write down your ideas as they relate to all the material that you have read. Remember to write your ideas. If you have read carefully and taken notes, you should come up with five to 10 ideas. The quality of the ideas counts, not the volume.

Review your ideas. Read them over and over. Walk away from them for a while if nothing comes to mind. Ideas do not appear magically. Your mind must mix all the concepts and facts that you learned from the readings. That can take time. After giving yourself a break of an hour, three hours, or even after a nap, eventually you should come up with a thesis. In all probability, the thesis will  incorporate many ideas you wrote down. Make sure that your thesis is where you want to start the essay and not where you want to finish the essay. If it is where you want to conclude the essay, then take the idea and think of all the ideas needed for it to be true. You will find your thesis. And yes, it does take work. 

(Remember your thesis should be a declarative sentence of less than 10 words. In other words, no defining, no passive voice, no questions. You do not have to use that thesis in the report. It's your guide.)

Most likely, your thesis will incorporate several of the other ideas that you have already written down. These ideas will make up your propositions. You may discover that your thesis includes an idea that you have not written. Great. Another proposition. (Too many propositions helps with your writing. Why? It makes your argument more logical for the reader and it gives you something else to write about, making writing a 1000 words easier.) 

Arrange the propositions in a sequence that makes logical sense, making sure that each idea feeds into the next idea. If it does not, figure what idea will help. Then add it.

When you finish that process, you can take one of two paths. Some authors writes from the thesis created and the propositions listed. They do not refer to their notes or look up facts or quotations. They create what they would call the core of the essay. Once they finish, they then go to their research hunting for teh quotations and facts that will support their ideas.

The second path: Go back to your research. Look for facts and quotations that support your various ideas. Insert the quotation or fact with the appropriate proposition. In essence you now have an outline. You are ready to write. 

Remember that you cannot quote the blog. So go to the original sources (links or URLs are provided with all the blog entries). Don't forget that you must have at least six in-text citations, and that your sources must appear as a Works Cited page--all in APA format. Make sure that you attribute all ideas that are not yours to a source.

Then you are ready to write. My suggestion: Write the report in a separate file. When you finish editing the report, copy and paste it into one of the letterhead templates. Then make the necessary changes in the template. Remember your Works Cited information. 

Marketers Spending More on Digital Advertising

“About 71 percent of marketing firms have reported that they plan to increase their digital [Internet] marketing budgets this year, according to a new report by Econsultancy and Responsys,” notes a ClickZ post. “The Marketing Budgets 2013 report says that marketing teams surveyed expect to increase their digital budgets by 28 percent on average. And around 56 percent of firms saying they will increase their digital budgets by over 20 percent within the year. ” Read more.

AOL's Ad Revenue Increases

AOL is not only surviving, it is thriving. “AOL reported its best quarterly revenue growth in eight years because of strong search and advertising sales, and its shares rose sharply,” reports the New York Times. “The company said Friday that total revenue rose 4 percent to nearly $600 million in the fourth quarter, beating analysts’ estimates of $573.7 million, according to Thomson Reuters. Advertising revenue, an important measurement for the company as it moves away from subscription-based dial-up services and emphasizes its media properties like The Huffington Post and Patch, rose 13 percent to $410.6 million.” Read more.
Recently Yahoo! posted similar results. While Google and Facebook may currently dominate the Internet marketing search field, each company is looking of its shoulder seeing AOL and Yahoo! in pursuit. Significance to Internet marketing? The greater the number of suppliers of a product or service (Internet search advertising in this case), the greater the efficiency and the lower the cost for the buyer (American marketers and, in turn, consumers).

New Media Could Surpass Traditional Media Soon

A survey conducted by Strata reportedly “polled nearly 100 advertisers in the fourth quarter of 2012 and found that spending toward TV and radio is declining. Forty-percent of respondents indicated that their clients were less interested in TV advertising and 32 percent were less invested in radio. Interest in print is down 60 percent year-over-year,” according to Brafton. “Meanwhile, 22 percent of agencies reported that the media landscape continues to evolve, and 76 percent say their clients use approximately three different channels to reach prospects.” Read more.

This debate has lingered for almost a decade: When--if ever--will digital media channels (web, mobile) surpass the traditional mass media--television and radio? Several years ago, it surpassed print. One question remains unresolved: Will companies replace TV advertising with Internet advertising, as some suppose, or will marketing organizations integrate online advertising and marketing with its TV advertising? If advertising on the recent Super Bowl forecasts the future, then integration will mark the new sophisticated marketing campaign.

Google's Advertising Algorithms Guilty of Racial Profiling?

"Every job candidate lives in fear that a Google search could reveal incriminating indiscretions from a distant past. But a new study examining racial bias in the wording of online ads suggests that Google's advertising algorithms may be unfairly associating some individuals with wrongdoing they didn’t commit," reports Huffington Post. "After learning that a Google search for her own name surfaced an ad for a background check service hinting that she’d been arrested, Harvard University professor Latanya Sweeney set out to investigate whether race shaped online ad results. She searched over 2,000 'racially associated names' to determine if names 'previously identified by others as being assigned at birth to more black or white babies' turned up ad results that indicated a criminal record. Specifically, she focused on ads purchased by companies that provide background checks used by employers." Read more.

Facebook Creates Transparency with Advertising

“Facebook is about to get more transparent in the way it targets advertising at its users. The social network has agreed to start displaying the little blue 'AdChoices' icon on its display ads served through its FBX ad exchange after months of public and private complaints from ad agencies and advertisers,” according to AdAge. “The icon -- intended to provide enhanced notice of behavioral targeting and allow users to opt-out -- will look the same as the one seen across the web, with one big caveat. Rather than appearing directly on FBX display ads, the symbol will show up only when users mouse over the gray 'x' displayed above the ads shown on Facebook's right rail. Even the 'x' only appears when someone mouses over it, so people not familiar with the feature won't always be made aware that an ad was targeted using third-party data gathered elsewhere online.” Read more.

Facebook is taking what appears as a pro-active campaign about becoming more transparent because of problems it faced in the past with its use of users' information.

Marketers Tweet During the Super Bowl Blackout

“Baltimore ultimately held on to their lead and won the Super Bowl. But viewers and the network were distracted from the traditional game-and-ad spectacle -- if viewers stayed around instead of switching to the 'Puppy Bowl' over on Animal Planet during the interlude. CBS seemed to repeat commercials that had already aired,” according to AdAge. "'Power out?' Oreo posted to Twitter. 'No problem. You can still dunk in the dark.' The tweet was retweeted 10,000 times within one hour.” Read more.

Getting More Out of Super Bowl Marketing

"Less is more—except when it comes to America's unofficial National Holiday of Excess, the Super Bowl," says Digital Marketing. "Following last year's extravaganza, marketers at Adobe got out their digital measuring sticks and sought to answer these questions: Should we still be spending so much money on a seemingly untargeted and an untrackable event? Should we replace it with a ramped-up digital program? Or will doing both be the thing to put the ball of commerce through the uprights. The answers they came up with, depending on a particular brand's budget, were yes, yes, and yes." Read more.

ClickZ has established a ranking--based on viewership--of this year's Super Bowl's ads. See it here.

And the New York Times posted this earlier Monday morning: "As advertisers tried to generate buzz by releasing commercials early online, Times readers voted Sunday night on which of the game’s ads stuck out, and which of the ads they could have done without." Read more, see the video.

How Grey Goose Used Social Media

"With American consumers becoming comfortable with spending significant amounts of money online, luxury brands have found new opportunities in promotional channels like social media and video content creation. Brafton reported that 85 percent of luxury brands will increase their digital marketing budgets in 2013, with 72 percent indicating they will allocate resources toward social media marketing. How effective is social media content for luxury brands, though? Does well-written copy published to Facebook or visual media pinned to Pinterest drive referral traffic and sales?" Read about how Grey Goose accomplished this task.

How to Market to Customers Via a Website

"The proliferation of content marketing compels marketers employed in various industries to consider and experiment with various types of media production. The goal: To create memorable web experiences that pull prospects in, not push them away via aggressive advertising tactics. People have had enough of the abuse, being subjected to various commercials in between their favorite shows and weeding through magazine ads to find the articles they care about most. Content marketing gives companies the chance to create their own compelling stories without third-party ads, and the practice works," according to a post on Brafton.

"According to a new report from BusinessBolts.com, which surveyed 265 marketers, content creation has become an active component to promotional strategies everywhere. In fact, approximately 74 percent of marketers say they use branded content to increase website traffic and build brand awareness. To drive traffic back to websites, content writers must optimize their media using SEO best practices, and take a narrow focus to their creative processes. The survey noted that marketers' biggest pressing question is how to leverage SEO content for greater site visibility and PageRank." Read more.

Old with the Old, In with the New--for a Short While

“The reduction at the Time Warner publishing unit will follow cuts at other media companies and come a week before the parent's fourth-quarter earnings release, set for Feb. 6. The New York Times just undertook a buyout to eliminate 30 people from the newsroom; Thomson Reuters laid off 3,000 of 50,000 people across the company; and Meredith Corp. cut 60, or about 2 percent of its workforce, to name a few,” according to a report posted with Adweek . “Time Inc. made deep staff cuts in 2008 and 2009. But in the third quarter of 2012, publishing revenues declined 6 percent, in part reflecting a 6 percent decrease in subscription revenues and 5 percent decrease in advertising revenues. This round of cuts is expected to be felt across the board although it would seem that Sports Illustrated would be less impacted because it took steps to  reduce staff over the summer.” Read more.

Just a decade ago, Time Corp. purchased the then leading powerhouse on the web: AOL. Ten years spans an eon in the digital business. A few years after the purchase of AOL, Microsoft became the industry's top dog. Google then usurped MS, and it appears that Facebook could overtake Google shortly. This has happened because people around the world are chasing after information, news, and entertainment on different media. In the time of AOL, low-speed dial-up dominated access to the newly created World Wide Web. With the introduction of high-speed access, AOL's role as an ISP vanished and Google took over. Once Mark Zuckerberg discovered that people prefer to gossip over the web rather than gather information and facts, he blew out Google with Facebook—especially with the ascent of mobile platforms. What's next?

FTC Protecting Privacy on Mobile Web

"In a strong move to protect the privacy of Americans as they use the Internet on their smartphones and tablets, the Federal Trade Commission on Friday said the mobile industry should include a do-not-track feature in software and apps and take other steps to safeguard personal information," according to a post on NYTimes. Read more.

Major Brand Advertisers Turning to Ad Exchanges

“'Premium' publishers [such websites as Nytimes.com, Wsj.com, and Time.com] concerned that direct response media marketshare [the percentage of advertisers that want consumers to response directly to their ads on the web] is being eaten up by the relatively low-priced media bought on ad exchanges* have a new - if predicted - worry: that the brand advertising media market might move in that direction as well. Kellogg's is finding that they can be effective in reaching brand goals through the programmatic buying,” reports Marketing Vox. “Kellogg's has traditionally been one of the firms most likely to experiment with new means of acquiring media - even going so far as to dedicate five percent of media budgets to media research studies to help determine relative efficacies. While much of that enormous media research budget may go in actuality to research designed to make brand managers' decisions look smart, they are one of the few very large.” Read more.**


*An ad exchange works similarly to a stock exchange. Publishers of websites post in which time slots that they had places for advertising. Advertisers automatically bid for the time slot, which goes to the highest bid. Think of an automated version of Hotwire for advertising space on the web.

**You might have noticed that I have not used APA for this news bit or the previous one. I will not for the remainder of the semester. Why? The hyperlink on a webpage effectively functions as a citation while making it easier for the reader– you--togoto the original source which you will need to do if you are to quote something from this blog. By the way, youmustdo that for everything you write in this class.

Small Businessmen Opt for LinkedIn--Ignoring Twitter and Facebook

“LinkedIn is gaining ground, now home to 200 million monthly active users, and small businesses are taking advantage. According to a survey conducted by the Wall Street Journal and Vistage International, LinkedIn is believed to be the network with the most potential for driving ROI, especially for smaller businesses,” according to a post on Brafton. “Forty-one percent believe that LinkedIn is the top network, followed by 14 percent who choose Facebook and 3 percent who give the credit to Twitter. Ken Lopez, leader of a legal consulting firm, told the Wall Street Journal that LinkedIn brings dramatically different results when compared to what his company sees from Twitter.” Read more.

Mobile Ads Growing with Facebook

“Wall Street really wants Facebook to figure out mobile, and for the second-consecutive quarter, Facebook delivered. Mobile ads accounted for 23% of Facebook's revenue over the holiday season, a far cry from last summer when CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged it had a lot of catching up to do as users quickly abandoned PCs for tablets and phones. Overall, Facebook didn't do so badly, either, as revenue climbed 40% over the previous year to $1.59 billion, including $306 million in mobile revenue, topping Wall Street consensus of $1.53 billion” (Delo, 2013).

Delo, Cotton (30 Jan. 2013). Facebook turns in strong quarter on growth in mobile ads. AdAge.com . Retrieved from < http://adage.com/article/digital/facebook-turns-strong-quarter-growth-mobile-ads/239498/?utm_source=digital_email&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=adage>.

While mobile ads must look different than traditional web ads because of the distinctly smaller mobile screens, does that constitute a new medium? Do not mobile ads depend on the web as much as any website? In essence, the mobile display of advertising, marketing, and content does not constitute a new digital medium any more than does a broadsheet newspaper constitute a different media than a tabloid newspaper.

Facebook's Graph Search--The New Top Dog?

“Facebook's Graph Search has the potential to completely revolutionize search, enabling consumers to have a uniquely personalized search experience — based not only on what they want but what they like, and who their friends are, by extending the value of the social graph and first-party data to sharply differentiate Facebook's offering from Google. The new offering extends the value of Likes and the social graph to search, which can revolutionize accuracy, value, and relevance — especially as consumers perform more and more local searches using mobile devices, an area where Google has struggled” (Williams, 2013).

Williams, Daniel (31 Jan. 2013). How Facebook's Graph Search will dethrone Google Search. AdAge.com . Retrieved from <http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/facebook-s-graph-search-dethrone-google-search/239509/?utm_source=digital_email&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=adage>.